Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The explosion of online TV advertising over the past few years has sparked a mad rush for user data and programmatic partnerships to better measure video ads. This increase eventually landed content measurement on the backburner.
Compared to ad inventory, measuring actual content has been less of a priority for measurement companies in the current era of streaming TV, said Jackelyn Keller, a TV ad sales veteran who became Comscore’s CMO earlier this month. Keller previously worked at Discovery, Turner, Univision and Samsung Ads.
But publishers lean even more into it content aggregation and distributionit is essential that publishers are able to effectively monetize their own content and platforms, she said.
To help bridge the advertising-content gap, Comscore on Thursday released a new video measurement tool that helps publishers and content owners monetize their IP by better understanding media consumption patterns — not just ad performance. The goal, Keller said, is to help publishers make smarter decisions about distributing or acquiring content beyond programmatic sales.
Launch partners include NBCUniversal, Google, Paramount and two other publishers.
Content is still king
Comscore Content Measurement (CCM), as the product is called, sits on the same platform as its campaign ratings, which have earned MRC accreditation in March.
In addition to streaming and traditional TV, the new offering combines audience and contextual insights about content across social, mobile and desktop. With all that information in one place, pubs can track audience segments based on demographics, interests and content consumption patterns, including what shows they watch and where, said Jen Carton, vice president of product management. Another new addition to Comscore, Carton joined the company in October after spending a decade on Nielsen’s product team. (The carton comes from Arbitron, which Nielsen bought in 2013.)
CCM is “ultimately a planning tool” that helps publishers figure out how to value their content so they can make more effective distribution deals and programmatic partnerships, Carton said.
For example, publishers can decide whether they want to redistribute their content free ad supported TV channels or even other streaming services based on whether their audience is watching similar shows elsewhere. The hit show “Yellowstone,” for example, was a Paramount original, but some viewers like Keller watched it on the Peacock. The NBC show “Suits” was released on Peacock and Netflix at the same time. HBO was too licensing other Netflix shows.
Programmers can also make more informed decisions about how to package certain content and how to price the rights to certain IP, Keller said. With this insight, she added, publishers would also have a better idea of how to programmatically price ad inventory within that IP, which would help them decide which supply-side platforms they want to work with.
Another use case for Comscore’s latest measurement tool is to help platforms present themselves as a home for content that publishers want to distribute or download.
Take YouTube for example, which has been trying to convince media buyers for years that it’s a premium streaming service on par with digital-only games like Netflix and Prime Video. Better insight into the types of viewers watching its videos would put YouTube in an even better position to compete with other programmers for content rights, Carton said.
Whichever way publishers look at it, she added, maximizing the value of their content helps publishers profit.